If you’re not a parent who has lost a child, you cannot possibly understand the grief and stress that the Bollings are experiencing. If you haven’t lost a teenager to opioids, you can’t stand on your soapbox and tell everyone how young Chase’s death could have been avoided.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) finds that overdose deaths among 15-to-19 year olds spiked more than 19% between 2014 and 2015. Prior to the increase, the death rate from drug overdoses actually fell 26% from 2007 to 2014.

Just three grams of Fentanyl is enough to cause an overdose. Fentanyl is everywhere. It’s prescribed for post-surgical pain, for cancer patients, and a while array of pain management protocols. Patches and pills are common. OxyContin and other opioids are flooding markets at an unprecedented rate.

“We can be the generation the ends the opioid epidemic. We can do it.”

The Hill reported that there’s only $57,000 currently allocated to deal with this kind of declaration, but Congress can allocate whatever they want. They should. They must.

Some problems cannot be solved by the will to do so. Violence, sin, and crime are matters of the heart. But drug addiction is one we can control better than we do. It might take money and changes to our medical procedures, but why would we not do it, simply because it’s hard and complex?

Money should not really be a limiting factor here. We didn’t put an economic limit on beating the Axis powers in World War II–the war had to be won, and the Greatest Generation had to be the generation to do it. This drug-addiction enemy is just as pernicious and dangerous. If we have another “war on drugs,” it needs to be this.

Congress must act. For the sake of Eric Chase Bolling and a whole generation of kids at risk for sudden death, we must summon the will to do what President Trump encouraged us to do: be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic.

About the author

Steve Berman

The old Steve cared about money, prestige, and power. Then Christ found me. All at once things changed. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

I spent 30 years in business. Now I write and edit. But mostly I love. I have a wife and 2 kids and a dog and we live in a little house in central Georgia.